


On the Other Side of the Storm

by stillgoldie1899



Category: Alice (2009), Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillgoldie1899/pseuds/stillgoldie1899
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although the Witch was gone, Az still didn’t feel like she belonged in the O.Z. And when her mother suggests she take a trip, she reluctantly agrees. But the storm that was supposed to take her to Kansas, to explore the world her sister grew up in, drops her instead in a lake, in a place called Wonderland…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Azkadellia)

No one wanted her there.

 

Of course, that wasn't true. Her mother, and father, and sister did. They wanted her there, although they all watched her with wariness when they thought she wasn't looking. But at least their careful wariness was better than the outright distrust cast in her direction by just about everyone else in the O.Z.

 

She understood it, of course. She had been a fairly horrific dictator. Cruel, calculating, capricious. One might even say vicious, outright evil, and she couldn't blame it entirely on the Witch. No, not all of it was the Witch. Most of it, the motivation, the vision, the ultimate goal, that was the Witch, but in those small moments, the bits and pieces of time between, she hadn't bothered to fight very hard to regain control fully. And why would she have? It was a hopeless situation. Her father was gone, driven off, her mother trapped into a prison she had designed, her sister dead, at her own hand. No one was going to save her. Life wasn't a fairy tale.

 

And then, of course, D.G. was alive. Came marching right in, that way she always did, turning everything on it's head with the power of her personality and force of will. She found their father, defeated the Witch, saved everyone. Hurray! Happy endings, happily ever after. Everyone was happy. Happy, happy, happy. Even she was happy. Why wouldn't she be? She was free, her family had been returned to her, life could actually begin, life where she'd left it, all those years ago.

 

Nothing was actually returned to her, in the end. Understandably. Most people never heard the whole story. They simply thought she was still the Evil Queen Azkadellia. Most couldn't understand why she hadn't been imprisoned. And everywhere she went, even disguised, people threw things at her, or just stared at her. Glaring. With hatred. Remembering loved ones lost, and happiness stolen from them. Things that she had done. Personally, although they had only ever been done in her name. But as far as the people saw, the blood of their families, the destruction of their lands, their hunger and cold, their suffering, their pain, all of it was on her hands.

 

She couldn't escape it. Anywhere she went, it was the same. Even the staff in the palaces hated her. The animals hated her. The trees and plants hated her. The flowers hated her, the sky, the dirt, the water hated her. She was at the end of her ability to handle any of it, desperate to escape it as it began to close in around her, like the prison walls people believed she deserved to have around.

 

And when her mother's suggested of a trip, to the land where D.G. had grown up, on the other side, even that attempt at kindness cut like a blade into her heart, already fragile, and easy to break. She ignored the suggestion for a long time. Months of slow, and painfully growing isolation, fading into a shadow of herself, more broken still than she ever had been while possessed, until she finally broke.

 

It had taken a lot of effort to get everything prepared, a storm set, things put together, lists of words and places and ideas that D.G. put together for her about the other side. Pages of information to try to remember. Strange things, that she didn't understand. Somehow, it scared her.

 

Not the storm itself, dark, and swirling, and furious, raw nature and power and magic. It was the possibility of being completely lost on the other side that was terrifying. The thought of being as alone there as she was where she came from. Until the storm went completely haywire, that was, she wasn't afraid of it. Until it dropped her from the sky towards a long, crystal blue lake, ice cold as she hit it, stealing the air from her lungs in a burst, the weight of her clothing, quickly growing heavy in the water, pulling her downwards as she struggled to pull herself up. She realized, with a terrified start that her magic was useless, nothing she tried had any effect, and she was forced to flail, in an undignified manner, back up to the surface, gasping for air, hair plastered to her face, blocking her mouth until she frantically brushed it aside.

 

Her bag began to weigh more than her clothes very quickly, and it made it clear she had to get to the shore. After maneuvering her bag a bit better onto her shoulder, she started towards it with sure, short strokes, quickly exhausting herself, forcing aching muscles to keep working until she could stand on the bottom, sloshing slowly forward. By the time she was on dry beach, she crumbled, onto her knees, and then her side, rolling onto her back, gulping in heaving lungfuls of air.

 

These were not cornfields. Not even knowing what corn was, she knew that. This wasn't Kansas, or whatever it was the land was supposed to be called. This was something else. The colors were brighter than D.G. said they would be, hyper-bright, the way the O.Z. had once been, and in the distance, she could see a tall, grey city. It seemed rather like Central City, and without another plan, or any idea what else she was going to do, the moment she had feeling back in her legs, that was where she was going to go. Also, it might help to be dry, but that was likely to happen, just lying in the sun the way she was. The sun on her face, the quiet, the slowly calming thunder of her heart a dull roar in her ears, and for the first time in a very long time, perhaps years, decades of life, she actually felt calm.


	2. (Duchess)

Jack had, of course, attempted to propose to her, after failing to keep Alice in Wonderland, for himself. Anyone with two eyes could have seen that the girl was infatuated with the Hatter, in spite of her original attachment to Jack Chase. And that was understandable, Jack Chase had been a lie, no wonder she'd fallen for the mildly mad man.

But that in no way meant that she was going to allow herself to be trapped with Jack, especially since she knew for a fact that Jack didn't love her. Jack had never loved her, and never would. She was going to be, eternally, a reminder of the life his mother had wanted him to have.

And she didn't love him. She never had, and she never would. She had agreed to the engagement because it had been ordered of her, and because she prided herself on doing what was expected of her. That had been her whole life. Doing what was expected. A creature of habit, easy to control, with fear. The Queen of Hearts could terrorize just about anyone with a glance, and she was no exception to that, no one was.

But the Queen was gone. Everything was supposed to be better, a new age. A golden age, freedom, and the rule of a sane king, a new king, Jack. It was getting better, too. Jack was trying so hard, and she was proud of him for that. But she wanted none of it for herself. She was done with the Hearts.

Her family had land, near the forest, and a house. Just a small thing, a bit run down, and she hadn't been there in ages, not since she'd been summoned the first time to the Casino, and had ended up staying there. It was a lot to clean up, but it had actually been nice. Real work, not caring as the manicured nails broke and got filed down, her hair neatly tucked back in a scarf, her clothing boring, plain. It felt good, honest. Somehow, it made her feel safe.

The best part of the house was the fact that it was very close to the lake, and whenever she felt like it, she could head there for a picnic lunch. Which was where she was headed, with a basket on her arm, blanked folded over the small spread of food and a small bottle of wine, when she saw a girl sprawled on the sand, eyes closed like she'd just washed up there.

She actually panicked, afraid the girl was dead, dropping the basket, and dodging forward, skidding to a stop on her knees in the sand, her fingers finding a pulse along the girl's neck, the exposed skin above the top of her somewhat strange dress, and face tinted pink, as though she'd been lying there in the sun for quite awhile. But there was a pulse, and when the dark-haired girl was shaken, she seemed to slowly stir.

"Are you alright?" She asked, softly, as the brunette finally opened her eyes, a small moan escaping her lips, hand quickly coming up to cover her eyes against the light of the sun.

"Um...yes, I think. Is this Kansas?" The brunette, with a bit of assistance, managed to sit up, shrugging a bag strap over her head, and off of her shoulder, rubbing at her eyes, and wincing slightly at the crisp feeling of her skin.

"Kansas? I'm sorry, I've never heard of a place called Kansas. This is Wonderland." Duchess smiled faintly, sitting back on her heels, shaking her head, and glancing around. There were no footsteps leading to where she'd been lying, so she had to have come from the water. "Did you...come from the water?"

"Damnit. I told mother that storm didn't look right." Glancing off to the side, the brunette made a bit of a face. "Ah, yes. I sort of fell near the middle of the lake. It took a bit of effort to swim to shore."

"You fell in the middle of the lake? Off of a flamingo, or out of a scarab?" Shifting, Duchess settled, crosslegged, and as though mimicking her, the brunette did as well, pulling her bag onto her lap, opening it, and beginning to go through it.

"I'm not sure what either of those are. I fell out of a storm. It's a method of travel. I was supposed to be going to a place called Kansas. But to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I wanted to go there. I suspect the storm could sense that, dropped me here instead."

The other girl was talking nonsense, that was the long and the short of it, but in Wonderland, nonsense was as common as sense, and therefore, it didn't bother Duchess much. "I see. Well, welcome to Wonderland, then. I'm Duchess." She held her hand out, and for the first time in a very long time, she was aware of the fact that her nails were done, that she wasn't wearing makeup, that her hair hadn't been styled in ages. She wasn't even sure why would matter, it wasn't as though the brunette was any more manicured, or put together. But it mattered. It mattered that she felt like she wasn't making a good impression, that she didn't look...right.

The brunette seemed to hesitate, before reaching for her hand, shaking it. "Azkadellia. Pleased to meet you."

"I was about to have lunch, Azkadellia." If Duchess had an opinion about the brunette's name, she kept it to herself, nodding back at the basket, laying in the sand. "Did you...want to join me?"

The way Azkadellia smiled, her lips curling up, just barely crooked, a bit like a cat, made Duchess's stomach drop a little, her breath catch, and before she could do anything about it, she was blushing, ducking her head as the other girl answered her. "That's very kind of you, thank you."

"Let me just get the basket, get it set up." It was a blessed distraction, getting to her feet to get to the basket, setting up the blanket, and the food, exchanging small conversations as she did, trying not to stare as the brunette twisted her hair up into a knot at the base of her neck, brushing sand off of a very slim fitting black dress, that seemed to cling to every curve. 

She had no idea how she was going to get through eating without getting food on herself- a feeling she hadn't had since she was a blushing young girl, giddy with a first crush. It was a terrifying, and wonderful feeling, like she was actually alive, like she was a real person again, and not a mindless servant. Fragile as she feared the feeling would end up being, she clung to it as they both dug into the simple meal, at the edge of the lake.


End file.
